Letters to the Editor
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Enlightened Despots
According to my history professors, Catherine was one of the socalled "enlightened despots" of European history. As such, she keeps company with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England, Frederick the Great of Prussia and Louis XIV of France. Although these rulers are positive examples of absolutism, in the end they were just absolutists. Too often the reforms they brought about died with them. When "the decider" died, his or her reforms died as well. In England, Henry and Elizabeth were followed by a succession of inept Stuart kings; Frederick the Great's successors were poor copies of their forebearer; and the last Bourbons in France were royal disasters. Catherine's legacy was a succession of czars that increased the empire but set the stage for the Russian Revolution that racked Russia in the twentieth century, ushering in a new form of despotism.